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Jan 29, 2012

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it:

This book is just devastating ... and devastatingly good. I've just finished it, and had a little cry on the balcony in the bright sunshine, thinking about my mom and motherhood and blame, self-recrimination, guilt and remorse and parental love and the painfully ambiguous, sometimes tortured complexity of it all.

And that is underselling it.

Suffice for now to say, you might not enjoy this if:

- You believe that a lack of maternal instinct or feeling is a charac More...

8 comments like (31 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Courtney rated it:

The pull-quote on the cover of the edition I read suggests that it's impossible to put this book down. That's almost entirely false. Out of the book's 400 pages, the first 300 were kind of like pulling teeth. Creepy, maternal teeth. The last 100 pages, however, were actually and physically impossible to look away from, and the brisk pace of the climax, after so. many. pages. of buildup, actually created a really wonderful, complete story that was very satisfying and which (god help me) made More...

10 comments like (103 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Nicola rated it:

I don't even know where to start with this one. The book was basically a whole load of nothing. It's the absolute definition of ''trying too hard.'' I don't care how many big words Shriver knows the meaning of. Throwing them in so often only made for muddled, disjointed, boring to read sentences.

There's no story. We know from the beginning that Kevin has shot a bunch of students dead, and then Eva goes on to tell random, often exaggerated stories from his childhood leading up to the More...

6 comments like (15 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2007

Lain rated it:

It's hard to review this book when I am so appalled at what it represents. I appreciate the author's attempt to get into the whys and wherefores of teenage mass murderers, but I'm not sure the book deserves the attention it's gotten. While it definitely presents the story behind one such (fictional) criminal, I don't believe that Kevin's story is every school shooter's story.

I think the relationship between mother and son (a son trying desperately to get a reaction from a mother who More...

19 comments like (34 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jessica rated it:

This book attacked my brain like a virus. The character of Kevin, the teenage murderer whose mom narrates the epistolary novel, was so disturbing and harrowingly well-drawn, that I think it caused some sort of chemical reaction in my brain. He gave me nightmares. I swear whenever I picked up the book gray clouds covered the sun.

In a series of letters to her estranged husband, narrator Eva dissects her family's life, from the decision to have a child to the day her son locked 9 classm More...

8 comments like (41 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2012

Kim added it

This book scared the living crap out of me. (living crap? Really? Is there another kind? I mean, is it dead when it’s out of you? I’m sorry… not getting it)

I kind of sort of knew the gist of the book. It was a rubbernecker… something to do with a deviant child, national tragedy, bandwagon message but I was not expecting this. It is so well written, so proper in its delivery that it takes awhile to warm up to the protagonist as she writes these letters to her husband post traum More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

This book explores the question of nature vs nurture. If you raise a psychopath was he born that way or did the fact that you never bonded with him turn him into one? I could see so many classic behaviors in the book, relationships I have witnessed, characteristics in people I know, that I chewed on the consequences and effects quite a bit as I read. In the end, I wasn't left with a satisfied feeling, but an empty, frustrated, almost evil one. Welcome to Eva's life.

Here's what I thin More...

11 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2008

Jenny rated it:

Some readers really don't like this book and I'm not entirely sure why.

Maybe it's because I'm not a mother and I did find it believable that Eva doesn't love her son completely.

Maybe it's because I enjoy the big words that were used in the letters and found it believable that she would write this way.

Maybe I'm a sucker for good endings and this one ended with a bang.

I think the writing was superb and despite it being a hard book to read (the incid More...

2 comments like (52 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2008

Libby rated it:

It's official: I'm in love with Lionel Shriver. First of all, she writes novels that should be gimmicky, but are not. In The Post-Birthday World she employs a doubled narrative that splits in two at its heroine's defining moment of choice/will/agency, what have you. In We Have to Talk About Kevin she goes for the epistolary form. But in both cases, the "device" is perfectly matched to the content, like an igloo (form follows function y'all). The meaning of the novel is bound to its f More...

5 comments like (33 people liked it)

Jul 20, 2007

Barbara rated it:

I don’t know where to start about this book. Disturbing? Terrifying? Sad? Brilliant! I could not put this book down from the minute I started it.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is from Lionel Shriver. I have never read one of her books before but this book was listed on the Staff Selection shelf at my local Chapters. (staff picks at my local Chapters haven't let me down yet) It grabbed me from the first page.

The story is told from a mother whose is trying to come to term More...

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Marvin rated it:

I do not think I alternately hated and loved a book so much since American Psycho. It is a roller coaster of a novel that doesn't flinch at the uncomfortable aspects of its story. Many reviewers dismiss the characters, especially Kevin and his mother, as unlikable. I think the author successfully portrayed them as real and, if not understandable, at least mirroring portions of our own human frailties and personalities. Kevin is the bigger puzzle and is meant to be. He kills a number of his scho More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2008

Julie rated it:

It's hard to know where to start in evaluating this novel. I would fall asleep reading it, then awaken in the wee hours and turn the light on to resume reading. It's haunting and it is dark, dark, dark. It is told in first person, by Eva, the mother of Kevin, her 15-year-old son who has committed mass murder "a la Columbine" and who is incarcerated. It is told entirely through her letters to her husband, Franklin, two years after the high school massacre. (Yes indeed, a true "epis More...

0 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2008

Alex rated it:

Just given this book a second reading – its beautifully written, Lionel Shriver’s prose is so elegant, so descriptive, it kind of sucks you in and carries you along, gently journeying towards its ghastly conclusion, through events that become increasingly shocking and raise so many more questions than answers. Maybe that’s why I read it for a second time – looking for the answer to the questions – hoping that if we can explain what went wrong, the final deed will somehow be easier to reconcile More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2008

Jenna rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 12, 2008

Jaime rated it:

I don't really know where to begin here. This book was intriguing, yet very, very disturbing for a number of reasons. Eva, mother to the murdering teenage boy, is brutally honest about her misconceptions of motherhood, her feelings toward her shameless, saucy little boy, and her apparent guilt regarding his murderous rampage. Although I love her candor, I was sometimes repelled by the way in which she talked about her son. Referring to Kevin as "a little shit" as the 18 month old More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

I couldn't put this book down. Harrowing it is; disturbing, upsetting, shocking - but brilliant.
It is very hard to identify with the main character; but by doing this, by alienating the reader through unnecessarily complicated language and an ultimately unsympathetic narrator, the author ensures the reader does not automatically take her side in the debate. This makes you start to question her viewpoint rather than just accepting it, opening the book up to the moral debate that is at the More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 09, 2011

Marzie rated it:

I read this book in 2006 when I saw it in a new authors section at B&N I can honestly say that this story has never left my thoughts. First the brilliance of Shriver choosing to write this entirely in the epistolary form. Odd at first yet by the time you are done reading it is hard to imagination any other way this could have been told to the reader. I knew nothing about this book or author when I came across it other than it had some decent reviews and the story sounded interesting. To go into More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2012

Kiersten rated it:

I did not like this book. Honestly, what was to like about it? The topic is horrifying, the characters are hateful (and not just the characters that commit mass murders) and the writing style is the worst of all.

From the first page I was SO irritated by the writing. I'll bet that the first purchase Ms. Shriver (and yes, Lionel is a woman) made after finding a publisher for this book was new thesaurus. I'm positive that hers was absolutely worn out. It was like, "Hi! Let's s More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Lisa rated it:

It seems I’ve had a staggeringly good run of books lately topped off with this superb novel, which is one of those books that is sure to stick in the memory for quite a long time to come as Shriver imagines the unimaginable – what it's like for the parent of a child who’s committed a truly monstrous act, in this case a school shooting.

Eva Katchadourian chronicles her grief and guilt in the aftermath of her son’s killings, as well as looking back and examining all of the little fears, f More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2010

jo added it

read a few chapters of it. impressive. more later.

***

still at it. it will probably take me a year to read it. english people write difficult language. i wish my sister in law and good friend sharon told me how long it took her to get through a page. it takes me about 4 mins and 23 seconds.

***

i really, really like this book. shriver is an immensely talented writer with fireworky facility with language and a ton of deep and true things to say about o More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Terry rated it:

This book made me feel...icky. I had heard many good things about it for years, since the hardcover was first released, and I was looking forward to reading it. It literally made me feel like I needed to take a purifying shower afterwards. I did not even want to have the book in my bedroom!

I was also shocked to find out it is/was considered by some reviewers to be a "feminist" book. Um, what? I mean, okay, the female main character (I can't even bring myself to call her a pro More...

3 comments like (18 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2008

Katherine rated it:

What a creepy book this was. I'd seen Elephant at the Auckland Film Festival a few years back (before Baby, when I actually had time and money to spend on frivolosities like film festival tickets) and thought it was an original, compelling take on the teenage-murder-rampage-at-school theme. This book was touted as another fresh and compelling portrayal of a teenager gone bad, told from his mother's perspective, and I started reading it when I was pregnant and wondering if my own imminent spawn w More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2007

Brian rated it:

As beautiful as it is haunting. The intimate details neatly cover the underlying theme of this book: That when there's nothing left to create, destruction itself becomes a form of creation. That absence of purpose eventually gives rise to a purpose of absence, and even meaning and truth are subjected to their own demise.

It's an interesting premise, and a bit unsettling to consider that the havoc, chaos and despair of this world is also the driving force behind it's progress. That More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2008

Sarah rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2007

Recynd rated it:

What a terrific read; brilliant writing, well-developed and interesting characters, masterful story-telling...I haven't read a book this original and compelling in ages. Plus, so dark!

After reading some of the other reviews, I gave my own impressions of this book more thought. Perhaps I mistook the author's decent vocabulary for good writing skills? Maybe the characters weren't as fleshed out as I had thought; was Eva not only shallow but one-dimensional, as well? Was Kevin a cli More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Maria rated it:

Once again a book I started but couldn't get through, only to pick it up for a book club some years later and find utterly impossible to put down.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is a very difficult book to read, and one that will make you question whether or not you really want to have children, when it can go so horribly wrong. In fact, it's a book that might actually make you scared to have children, because of how Kevin acts towards his mother from the very beginning.

Whi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Eileen rated it:

I let out a sigh of relief as I closed this book. A book that should have taken me a few days to read ended up in an 8 day struggle. I expected a third person narrative of a fictional school shooting. I was excited to see how Shriver would handle all the angles and different perspectives of everyone that is involved with a school shooting. What I ended up with was a compilation of angered ridden letters addressed to the Eva Khatchadourian’s (mother of the murderer) ex husband.

In thes More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2007

Allison rated it:

I read this book at my cousin's demand. And I have to thank her. I've been pimping this book out since. I can usually blow thorugh a 400-page book in an afternoon. Not this one. The language and complicated themes won't allow it. I like that about this book. It took me a week to read and in doing so is the first book in a long time that I've read that I feel I got my whole 15 dollars worth.

The letter format is fantastic. In 400 pages, I never get bored by this technique and I can onl More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2012

Laurie rated it:

Could also be called 'We Need To Talk About A Thesaurus'

Kevin's mother tells this story through some long tedious letters filled with big huge words. This goes on for about 250 pages. I was about to lose it myself, Kevin.

But as we get down deeper, this book just takes on a life of its own. Understanding Kevin's mind, the clothes he wears; the details are portrayed perfectly in this evil character. It's like he's breathing over your shoulder ...watching you shiver.
More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Maggie rated it:

Absorbing story of a co-dependent relationship of sorts between a mother and her son. He is the perpetrator of a high school mass shooting. Neither of these characters are particularly appealing, yet each at times shows insight into the other. I found the final paragraphs unlikely and yet at the same time all too believable. I felt the book began a little slowly, but about 100 pages in the story grips you. The reader is left to decide how much of the tale is accurate and how much is the distorte More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)